I have a book, the supreme ethical, moral, and religious volume of all time. In it is written that he who treasures an evil passion in his heart, or allows it residence in his soul, is by so much less than the man he might be. No hater can be at the height of his possible efficiency in physical strength, in moral courage, or in spiritual stamina. In the long run a nation loses power in proportion as her system of faith disregards moral values.
Germany has temporarily changed the map of Europe, but unless God contradicts Himself she is farther from triumph to-day than she was when her legions stood before Liége. No long-distance gun from Krupps' can outrange the truth.
"The German 'Hymn of Hate' saved Paris." Yes, and it will be written at the end, "The German 'Hymn of Hate' saved America and the world." It was not the "Star-Spangled Banner," that hymn of unsullied glory, that sent America marching out of her isolation into the slaughter-plains of Europe; it was the "Hymn of Hate," the hymn of submarines and Zeppelins, of poison gas and unnumbered atrocities, the hymn that mingled with its chorus the cooing of infants about to drown and the screams of women about to suffer the greater death.
What Britain and France and Russia and America, perhaps, could not have done, Germany has done herself.
But is this system of faith practical from the standpoint of the individual, the individual who has suffered, suffered in his own body and in the flesh of those dearer to him than his own life, the tortures of hell? I have visited in scores of British homes of mourning, and have generally found the fulfilment of the promise, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
In Cooke's Presbyterian Church, Toronto, Canada, one Sunday morning of November, 1916, I listened to a sermon preached by Rev. Mr. McGaw, then assistant to Dr. William Patterson. Mr. McGaw later became pastor of a church in Montreal. He is as Irish as his name suggests. His own family has been in France from the beginning; when the sermon to which I refer was delivered, two brothers were lying in hospitals, wounded. At the close of the service Mr. McGaw prayed; and, as he prayed, I found myself in a sweat of amazement. He said:
"Our Father, thou knowest that we do not pray for the triumph of German arms; we pray for the destruction of the power that has wasted the world, for the despoiling of the ruthless despoiler, for the toppling of the last crown of autocracy, and that the last throne of militarism shall be tumbled down. But, our Father, as we pray for our own who suffer, for our wounded brethren, for our dying comrades, for our widowed and our orphaned and our bereft, we pray for the sufferers of the enemy."
By my side that morning sat a returned Canadian soldier with blinded eyes. As I lifted my head after the prayer, I looked into the face of my friend who had made so great a sacrifice, and his face was illumined by a "light that never was on sea or land." I was wrong. McGaw was right.